One month old!!

Today Jack's 1st month birthday was celebrated by a chest x-ray, a brain scan, and a hepatitis B vaccine shot. He's doing better than he has been, but he's stll desatting a lot, and having problems with his lungs. He's up to 22 ccs per feeding, so that much is good. He's got quite the reputation now-- one of the nurses calls him "Badness" because he's always tripping his alarms, and when they do his cares he pushes, kicks, moves all over the place, and pretty much does what he can to thwart their effots. They've pretty much decided that if he pulls his ventilator tube out again, they're going to try him back on the CPAP.

**Notes from Sonnet**

Today is a really rough day for me, honestly. It's craptastic when your child is a month old and you can count, without trouble, how many times you've been able to hold him. Please, please, anyone who does have kids and is reading this, don't take those little things for granted. Listen to someone who doesn't get those things. I've been able to change his diaper 4 times-- average of once a week, although I haven't been able to do anything for him in the past week and half. I don't get to feed him, I can't get him ready for bed, I don't get to help him when he cries. Well, if I could hear him, which I can't because of the ventilator. The closest I get to caring for Jack is when I get to be "pain control" for the nurses, which means that I get to lay my hands on his torso and head to calm him while they do something to him, or for shots and such, I get to give him and hold his sugar water coated pacifier, to help him not mind it so much. I watch people in stores, in the mall and restaurants, who have kids, and how they interact, and I wish that were me. Then I get to go to the hospital, flash my handy bracelet, and see my son, talk to him through a porthole in the isolette, and maybe, if I'm lucky, the nurse gives me the ok to touch him.
Forgive the rant, today isn't my strongest day.